Italy and Germany Claim 470 Junior European Championship Titles

470 Junior European Championships 2012

Riva, Lake Garda, Italy

Simon Sivitz Kosuta and Jas Farneti (ITA) trumped the fleet to claim the gold medal in the men/mixed event and Annika Bochmann and Elisabeth Panuschka (GER) won the gold in the women's fleet - both holding onto their leading positions from the start of the Medal Race.

Teams enjoyed six days of racing on the challenging Lake Garda, in what were mainly breeze conditions, apart from Tuesday and Friday's lighter days. Seventy nine 470 Men/Mixed teams and 29 470 Women teams from thirty nations contested the Championship titles, which also welcomed teams outside of Europe from Argentina, Australia, Chile and USA.

A great outcome for Great Britain and France, with both nations having teams on the podium in the 470 men/mixed and women events.

470 Men Simon Sivitz Kosuta/Jas Farneti were absolutely thrilled with their success on home waters and achieving "the double" of gold medals at both the 470 Junior European Championships and the 470 Junior Worlds, held in New Zealand in January, in the same year.

"After the World title, this is very important for us. Here there were a lot of teams who were not in New Zealand, so we confirmed our first position. I think it was harder than the 470 Junior Worlds, just because we were on the lake. If it was on the sea I think it could have been a different story. We are very fast downwind, and here there is lots of reaching."

Understandably it was an added bonus to win in Italy, "It was very good and the Italian team are all very happy about the win," said Sivitz Kosuta.

Mike Wood and Hugh Brayshaw (GBR) had been steadily climbing up the leaderboard through the week, positioning themselves in fourth overall going into the medal race, and with just six points separating the boats in third to fifth. A race win in the medal race was superb timing for their third race win of the series.

Wood said, "We just wanted to go out and do our own race and achieve a good result, and it made everything else quite simple."

Brayshaw added, "I was trying not to look around and downwind I was concentrating on the kite and did not see. And it was only at the finish that I realized we had won the silver and then there was sudden excitement, it was brilliant. This is the hardest fleet we have sailed in and the best we have done. We sailed in 420s for a few years together, but never got onto the podium and to have it now is really good."

470 Women Guaranteed a medal going into the medal race, with only the colour to be determined, Annika Bochmann and Elisabeth Panuschka (GER) were on familiar territory to have secured themselves such a strong position at yet another Championship. They looked a little unsettled at the start of the Championship, as Poland's Ewa Szczesna and Irmina Mrozek Gliszczynska set the early pace and had everything going their way to hold the lead from race 1 until race 8. But as always consistency and steady sailing pays, and Bochmann and Panuschka wrapped up their campaign with a win in the Medal Race to safely deliver them the gold medal.

Bochmann and Panuschka have only been sailing together since 2011 and the gold medal concludes a stunning junior career for Bochmann. Bochmann raced with her previous crew for five years, and has competed at four past Junior European Championships with Anika Lorenz, securing silver in 2011, gold in 2010, bronze in 2009, gold in 2008. At the 470 Junior Worlds, Bochmann secured silver in 2012 with Panuschka, and previously with Lorenz the gold in 2011, silver in 2010, bronze in 2009 and fifth in 2008.

The new pairing is so far delivering a matching medal winning performance. "Before we sailed together, we were aware of each other, but didn't know each other," commented Bochmann about Panuschka. "But now since we have been racing together, we discover we have the same character and we talk a lot on the boat about tactics and technical things. Our partnership really works on that."

Maëlenn Lemaître and Aloïse Retornaz raced a perfectly executed series, never finishing outside of the top 10 and with 9 of their 11 races results inside the top 5, to claim the silver medal. The Germans and French last faced each other at the 470 European Championships in July, where it was again advantage Germany who secured the bronze, with the French tenth overall. Lemaître and Retornaz secured the bronze medal at the 2011 420 Ladies World Championships and have superbly demonstrated their skills in the 470 this week.